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Estimated value of my aircraft

I know zilch about your aircraft type, Scenicflyer, but the reason you are getting some cautious responses is because aircraft purchase really is like that. It’s a bloody minefield!

People sell planes for the same reason they sell cars etc. Sometimes totally genuine, but in a large % of cases it isn’t (can of worms etc).

What works in your favour is that a % of people are looking for a particular thing (say, a house is a very specific location) and when they see it they fall in love with it and throw caution to the wind. The Q is how long do you want to wait for one of those. There is an estate agent here which specialises in that – they overvalue houses and let them sit… they do OK.

As Medflyer mentioned, you also get jokers. Many years ago I was in a chain for a house. Months later, it still wasn’t moving. Guess why? The #1 house wasn’t actually for sale! Someone was just dreaming… There was a TB20GT which had a long running scam around it. It was never for sale (well not until later) yet somebody was asking 10k for a viewing plus a flight. The real owner’s apparent unwillingness to respond to communications enabled it to run for ages. I had numerous emails from people who got involved (but luckily walked away). You have to treat this like internet dating… there is either interest or there isn’t, and you shouldn’t get into protracted stuff, or anything which smells even slightly fishy. The buyer you want will be somebody straight who will turn up with an engineer, check it out, maybe haggle a bit (using justifiable reasons) and buy it. Somebody who doesn’t turn up with an engineer is one of

  • an engineer himself
  • a fool
  • a time waster
  • a scammer

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I haven’t dabbled in Internet dating haha, but I get what you are saying. Thanks for the input. I think I’ve gotten enough advice/warnings… it’s time to just go for it I suppose! Be on the lookout for an AA5 for sale within the next couple months ;)

Cheers all.

Good luck – I wish you every success. Have not flown the 5A but loved the Tiger.

EHLE / Lelystad, Netherlands, Netherlands

I consider myself a newb in this field, but I have bought 2 SEPs and sold 1 in the past 18 months. Based on what you’ve said, I’m guessing your plane would move in the 15-20K EUR range. If you get 20K, consider yourself lucky. That may sound unkind, and I may be wrong, but I recently sold a 180HP Rallye for 17K EUR after spending 12K EUR in the first year of ownership. It was in good mechanical condition (with quite a good engine, lower time than yours), but lacked avionics, decent paint or interior. I sold it because the cost of upgrades were going to be far more than buying an already upgraded plane which is what I have now.

Tököl LHTL

I sold it because the cost of upgrades were going to be far more than buying an already upgraded plane

Which is, as I have come to learn, a fundamental truth of aircraft ownership

LOAN Wiener Neustadt Ost, Austria

That does depend on where you start, however.

For example my 2000-era panel would still be 100% good for European IFR, with an 8.33 swap of one of the radios (KX165A, net cost about $2.5k).

But if you start with a ~20k plane and want to equip it for IFR, you are looking at spending way more, and the cost will never be even slightly recovered.

The other problem with buying a plane instead of upgrading yours is that you might buy someone’s can of worms. That is why I am installing TKS, rather than doing what every other TB20 owner is doing (selling the TB20 and buying an SR22 with TKS ).

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

May I ask why you want to sell?

mh
Aufwind GmbH
EKPB, Germany

This is the second aircraft we’ve bought. The first one was bought for 8.5k, flown for a year and sold back to the people we bought it from for 8.5k, considering the amount of work we had done on it. Selling because I’ve gotten my CPL and need a job…

Scenic_Flyer wrote:

OK, so basically I was just wondering if anyone could give me a rough estimate of the value of my 1972 Grumman AA5 Traveler. It has only around 1500 engine and 4500 air frame hours on it. It has a good instrument cluster, with a DME, mode C transponder, ADF, CDI (with G/S… however it’s not very accurate – not recommended for IMC ILS), original auto level function, multi frequency radio stack, etc.

Hello Scenic Flyer.

Difficult to say with this kind of information. To sell your airplane sucessfully, you´d have to make up a good ad, on planecheck or elsewhere, and put the information in there which a buyer needs. There is quite a lot of it:

Airplane time since new (ok, you sa that, 4500 hrs).
Engine time since new or overhauled (ok, 1500 hrs you say), then time of the last overhaul or how old the engine is since new. 150 hp or 160?
Prop time since new or overhauled.
Keep a sheet with the repetitive items close so when a buyer asks for when were the hoses redone, when the magnetoes overhauled, e.t.c. you know and can say.

Avionic: It is not anywhere near enough to simply add a “good instument cluster” but you will need to put a proper list together, the exact type of each box built in. Then add a good panel picture, maybe several. Educate yourself about your plane and it´s equipment. When someone calls, have all the answers ready.

Mode S is almost a must. Depending on the Transponder you have, it may well be a good idea to upgrade to a TT31 or similar, the cost is minimal but then it is a “ready to fly” plane as opposed to one which has to be upgraded first. First buyers will like a ready to fly plane, not a project. 8.33 is not such an issue just yet but it will be in 2017.

Personally I feel information about the last annuals costing +6000 etc are scaring away people bloody fast. What is good information is how much the last 5-6 annuals cost in average, new buyers will want to know that. If they see “6000 invested in last annual” they run fast and far as they fear it will be like this every year….

Interior, exterior, same thing. And add pics, plenty of them.

Price:

The Traveller is the first of the AA5 airplanes. As some said here, it´s a good starter airplane which has a decent speed of about 120 kts and reasonabe payload of around 260 kgs with full fuel but is short on range of around 400 NM as compared to the AA5A Cheetah. It does not have the Cheetah´s speed mods. Other than that, a robust, nice first plane for someone to get their first flights. The fuel load of 37 USG corresponds to some Cessna 172 models, yet the Traveller is slightly faster than similarly equipped 172´s and PA28, which are slower.

A well equipped and kept Traveller will fetch between 25-35k Euros, depending very much on the details lined out above. IF you want a more practical valuation, you need to supply more information.

Generally: Do your homework, present a good, complete, well thought through ad with a realistic price, and you will sell pretty fast. If you want help, you can get it here.

The Traveller is a lovely first plane and you should not have too much problems selling it. I almost bought one in 2008, when a French Traveller was on the market for 16000 Euros but I never got to see it, it did not last longer than 2 weeks on planecheck.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

I have recently sold a couple of older planes and is currently in the market for an IFR tourer (sorry, neither an AA5 nor Beech).

I agree that a lot of the people coming out to look are time wasters and some surprisingly so (as in a couple driving for hours and didn’t even want to look inside….took one look and waled away….it honestly look pristine). You however newer know who is genuine and who is not. I bet that a number of the people who decline to move forward could and would have bought had it not been for better options out there (better fit, better price, different colour, whatever). I would though say that the longer the initial email and the more “history” the more serious they seem to me.

Now….as a buyer I am equally surprised by the attitude of some sellers. I normally make sure to say a little about my flying background, reason for looking for a new plane, etc., and I am really surprised by the number of people who never respond to the initial email…even some brokers! I have also come across sellers who asked me to pay all cost related to a test flight (fair enough), plus an hourly charge of several hundred pounds for their trouble. I have taken many people for free flights just because they liked the plane I had, so needless to say that I move on.

I guess the best advise I can give you is to treat everyone seriously and accept that you will have to kiss many frogs. It is not a sellers market, I’m afraid, except from a few marks that seem to get sold (Cirrus at the right price to be specific)

EGTR
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